China website highlights early DPRK-China tensions China-NK relations

by Michael Rank

If you're a Great Leader it can feel a little uncomfortable having another Great Leader on your doorstep, and a very interesting report in Chinese highlights intense rivalry between Mao Zedong and Kim Il-sung in the 1950s and 60s.

This short report says North Korea took part in underground activities against China's Korean minority after the Korean war in order to instill in them a fatherland concept and ideology of the leader, telling them their fatherland was the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and their leader was General Kim Il-sung. But this did not have a great impact on most Chinese-Koreans, it adds.

In 1959, when China embarked on the disastrous three years of hardship (the Great Leap Forward), NK seized the opportunity to urge Chinese-Korean graduates and other qualified personnel to take part in the NK Chollima (thousand mile/flying horse) movement, and set up border reception posts to welcome them back from abroad (presumably NK/USSR, etc).

It also says the Changbai mountains and Tianchi lake on the China-Korean border have been sacred Chinese territory for generations, with Baitou Feng (White Headed Peak), the highest peak in the range, marking the frontier, and even under Japanese occupation Tianchi was marked on maps as being on the Chinese side of the border. NK recognised this when the state was founded, but during the NK-China honeymoon period the North Koreans sent a delegation to demand that part of the lake be given to NK, saying stuff like this was where the great General Kim Il-sung began his revolution and they hoped our country would understand the deep proletarian feelings of Korea's labouring people, etc, etc (the writer clearly feels the NKs laid it on a bit thick - MTR). China agreed to divide Tianchi in half, and the day after the North Koreans changed the name of Baitou Feng to General Peak (no prizes for guessing who the General is - ed).

The North Koreans got even bolder after this and solemnly declared in a diplomatic note that part of Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces and much of Jilin were historically part of the Koryo empire and had later been invaded by China, but now China was a socialist country it should return these territories to Korea. Foreign Minister Chen Yi told Premier Zhou Enlai about this, and Zhou ordered the Liaoning Academy of Sciences to launch an urgent investigation into the history of the border and report to the State Council. The conclusion was naturally that this was Chinese soil and had no connection with Koryo. But when we reported this conclusion to the Korean side and rejected their unreasonable demands, they were furious and immediately went over to the Soviet side and said they would resolutely remain on their side.

In 1966 when the Cultural Revolution broke out, Kim Il-sung was deeply worried and had no idea what was going on in Mao's mind. But when the Red Guards came up with the slogan, Chairman Mao is the red sun in the hearts of all the peoples of the world, started putting up big character posters and said they wanted to arrest the capitalist roader Kim Il-sung [!], he thought to himself, I am the red sun of our country, how can it be Mao Zedong! He was furious and had a martyrs' memorial garden from the Korean war destroyed, including the grave of Mao's oldest son Mao Anying (1922-50).

The NKs set up loudspeakers on the border at this time, flagrantly attacking the Chinese Communist Party and proclaiming, Chairman Kim Il-sung is the red sun in our hearts, and even more audaciously building a dam on the Yalu river to divert water and creating a drought in China. The Chinese also set up loudspeakers, attacking Kim as a Korean revisionist. This was the doing of the Red Guards and rebel faction while the official media kept quiet, but relations between the two sides atrophied.

Kim later saw what chaos the Cultural Revolution had created and how the capitalist roaders in China had been overthrown, so when he visited Beijing he apologised to Mao and admitted his mistakes. He promised to rebuild the martyrs' memorial garden, while Mao said friendship came first and mistakes were secondary.

By the way here's a new, somewhat speculative report in Chinese on Mao senior's reaction to his son's death and why his remains were left in Korea and not repatriated to China. It's based on memoirs of a political commissar called Du Ping found in the Korean war museum in Dandong. And here's a picture of Mao Anying's grave taken in 1956. Above this is a photo of Anying with a Soviet youth delegation when they visited Beijing for May Day celebrations in 1950. Mao was the interpreter, standing next to the main speaker, according to the man who took the photo, Meng Zhaorui. This seems to be one of only two known photos of Mao Anying, who was killed a few months later. The other, better known photo shows young Mao with his dad. Meng is one of China's best known photographers, who covered the peaceful liberation of Beijing, the Korean war, Chinese atomic bomb tests and the trial of the Gang of Four in 1981. The last time the North Koreans paid official tribute to Mao Anying seems to have been in October, 2000, during Madeleine Albright's visit to Pyongyang, make of that what you will....

My recollection is that the Soviets and Chinese became so irked at the inefficiency of Kim Il Sung & faction in running the Communist-held areas of North Korea during the Korean War, after Chinese intervention, that they installed their own guys to run NK for the duration of the war.

Kim Il Sung managed to ditch that faction and regain control a year or so after the war ended, but he had it in for Mao for some time after that.

I saw a documentary on NY times by Krugman. According to him there is deep resentment against the Chinese by the North Koreans. The N.Koreans see the chinese as "corrupted" apart from the obvious ethnic differences.

I saw a documentary on NY times by Krugman. According to him there is deep resentment against the Chinese by the North Koreans. The N.Koreans see the chinese as "corrupted" apart from the obvious ethnic differences.

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